Stephen Jones enjoys ready-made excuse for Cowboys’ free agent frugality

The 2022 offseason isn’t officially underway yet, but the Dallas Cowboys, and specifically executive vice president Stephen Jones, are already in peak form. Making the playoffs for the first time in three years, the Cowboys were eliminated from the postseason in the wild card round proving there’s still work to do.

Part of Dallas’ to-do list this offseason includes deciding what free agents they want to re-sign, which ones they let go and which ones they can afford to bring in. As it always is with Jones, it’s the last part that drives Cowboys fans crazy as they became the first team in NFL history to not make the conference championship game over their last 11 playoff appearances.

As free agency is set to open next month, it’s important to remember the Cowboys are unlikely to make a splash on a big-name player or invest in significant money on outside talent. The franchise has 21 free agents of their own to sign, so decisions must be made.

It’s also unlikely Dallas will be re-signing all their options, which includes any of the high priority players. Jones has already put fans on notice with his annual no-money explanation.

Just when fans feel they can’t stand Jones any more than they already do, he comes along with the same rhetoric he provides every year. It’s a built-in excuse of why the Cowboys can’t be bidders on the best talent available in free agency, and why the team likely won’t be able to bring back some of their own top-tier free agents.

Savvy fans know it just isn’t true. The salary cap is real but compliance can be finessed to help teams acquire any talent they want.

Stephen Jones is Dallas’ financial wizard in charge of working the salary cap to ensure the team stays inside the NFL’s cap restraints. And while other teams work their ‘magic’ to sign quality talent outside of their respective teams during free agency, Jones routinely works to add bargain basement players at positions of need. The Cowboys think of it as addressing a hole on their roster, when in reality it’s just adding a “guy” at a position of need.

What Jones did say is correct, there is work for the Cowboys to do. The team is currently over the salary cap but they have moves already planned out to get under the threshold by the time the league year arrives.

More financial moves must be made to get the Cowboys under the cap so they can get to work in free agency. Fans just shouldn’t expect much. With some prominent pieces from this year’s Cowboys about to hit the open market, Jones has made it blatantly obvious Dallas won’t be able to retain some of them.

Among some of the big names the Cowboys will have to make decisions on include defensive end Randy Gregory, tight end Dalton Schultz, wide receiver Michael Gallup, safety Jayron Kearse, left guard Connor Williams, and punter Bryan Anger. The Cowboys aren’t likely to re-sign all these key contributors and will lose some in free agency.

And when a few of them leave, who is going to replace them? If Jones isn’t going to spend to keep these solid players around, he also isn’t likely to sign guys with similar talent in free agency because they won’t have the money to do so, according to Jones.

The draft can bring help and Jones loves to point to it as an avenue to restock talent, but it’s not easy replacing known commodities for the crapshoot of the draft. The Cowboys will love the 2023 compensatory picks they get for losing some of their best free agents, but the help for the team isn’t immediate. With the Cowboys trying to capitalize on what they did 2021 and build momentum towards 2022, they’ll need to bring talent back, not just replenish with the unknown.

Yet that’s what Jones is already selling to the masses of Cowboys fans. That they can’t re-sign all their best free agents or spend big money on quality players outside the organization.

The excuse has grown tiresome and it’s disappointing to watch other teams with “cap problems” continue to go out and be aggressive in talent acquisition. The Los Angeles Rams are the poster boys for being aggressive against cap woes and eschewing draft picks for known talent, look where it’s gotten them in the past four years. They have two more Super Bowl appearances than the Cowboys, which has apparently yet to set alarms off for Jones.

The fan base for the Cowboys already had a disdain for Stephen Jones and he just provided more ammunition for that hatred to continue.

You can chat with or contact Ben on twitter @BenGrimaldi.

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